Chapter 15 - ELENA
Victor did not believe Gabriel.
Not immediately.
Perhaps not at all.
Grief did strange things to truth.
It made impossible things tempting.
Eleven months of waking alone.
Eleven months of walking past Elena’s closed studio.
Eleven months of raising Ethan beneath the shadow of a mother he would never remember.
Now Gabriel expected him to accept one sentence.
She isn’t dead.
Victor stepped back.
“Prove it.”
Gabriel sat on the floor.
Blood touched his lip.
He wiped it away.
“Her body was never viewed.”
“I identified her.”
“You identified jewelry.”
Gabriel replied.
“And dental records.”
“Records Elena had already copied.”
Victor’s face went pale.
Adrian stared.
“The coffin.”
“Contained a woman from the truck.”
Gabriel said.
“A Jane Doe.”
Serena whispered.
“Oh, my God.”
Victor turned.
“You knew?”
“No.”
Serena looked genuinely shaken.
“I swear.”
Gabriel continued.
“Elena discovered Raymond wanted Thomas’s archive.”
“She also discovered he planned to use Ethan against the trust.”
“So she built a counterplan.”
Victor’s hands shook.
“She left my son.”
“She intended to return within forty-eight hours.”
Gabriel replied.
Victor’s voice became dangerous.
“Eleven months is longer than forty-eight hours.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because someone intercepted her after the crash.”
Silence.
Adrian stepped closer.
“Who?”
Gabriel shook his head.
“I never found out.”
“You helped fake her death and then lost her?”
Victor shouted.
Gabriel stood.
“I was shot that night.”
Victor froze.
“I spent two weeks in a private clinic under another name.”
“When I came out, Elena was gone.”
“Raymond believed she was dead.”
“Serena believed she was dead.”
“Everyone did.”
Victor stared.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because Elena made me promise.”
“She said if she disappeared, Ethan was safer if everyone believed the lie.”
Victor laughed bitterly.
“My son was drugged.”
“Hurt.”
“Kidnapped.”
“And you call that safer?”
Gabriel’s face collapsed.
“No.”
Victor turned away.
Lily’s voice came through the phone.
“Victor.”
He remembered she was still connected.
“What?”
“Ask Gabriel where Elena planned to go.”
Victor looked at him.
“Where?”
Gabriel hesitated.
“A safe house in Wisconsin.”
“Where?”
“Lake Geneva.”
Everyone went still.
Catherine Moretti’s house.
The property hidden inside Thomas’s archive.
Victor’s voice lowered.
“You knew about that house?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
“Because when I checked after recovering, it was empty.”
Victor looked at Adrian.
Adrian had told them about the property only after decoding Nicholas’s token.
Too many people had known pieces.
Nobody had known the whole.
That fragmentation had kept Raymond powerful.
It had also kept everyone blind.
Lily spoke again.
“We’re at St. Catherine’s church.”
Victor looked at Gabriel.
“Do you know it?”
Gabriel went pale.
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Elena chose it as the emergency meeting point.”
Victor’s heart accelerated.
“After the lake house?”
Gabriel nodded.
“If something went wrong.”
Victor stared at the phone.
“Lily.”
“Yes?”
“Search the church.”
Dominic heard.
“We already did.”
“Search again.”
Lily looked around.
The abandoned pews.
The altar.
The organ.
Thomas’s hidden archive.
Then she noticed a small symbol carved into the wood beneath the recorder compartment.
A gardenia.
Elena’s flower.
“Dominic.”
He saw it.
They pressed the carving.
A second compartment opened.
Inside was a folded piece of paper.
Lily unfolded it.
Elena’s handwriting.
GABRIEL FAILED.
Victor’s stomach dropped.
Lily kept reading.
DO NOT BLAME HIM.
Gabriel closed his eyes.
THE TRUCK DRIVER CHANGED THE ROUTE.
I WAS TAKEN BEFORE I REACHED CATHERINE’S HOUSE.
Lily’s breathing quickened.
The note continued.
THEY THINK I DO NOT KNOW WHO THEY ARE.
I DO.
Then a name.
Not Raymond.
Not Serena.
Not Adrian.
Not Dominic.
Lily whispered it.
“Dr. Mercer.”
Victor went completely still.
His private physician.
The man treating Ethan.
The man who ran the medical center.
The man who had ordered every test.
The man currently controlling access to Victor’s son’s medical information.
Victor turned toward Ethan’s room.
Empty bed.
His heart stopped.
“Where is Mercer?”
Gabriel checked the hallway.
“He left twenty minutes ago.”
Victor ran.
Ethan’s room was empty.
Again.
Serena screamed.
Nicholas swore.
Adrian sprinted toward the garage.
Victor called Dr. Mercer.
No answer.
He called the clinic security line.
A guard reported that Mercer had left through the underground entrance with a pediatric transport case.
Victor’s hands shook.
Not again.
Not his son again.
Lily heard everything over the phone.
“Elena warned us.”
She whispered.
Dominic looked at her.
“Mercer took Elena.”
“And now Ethan.”
The FBI agents moved.
Within minutes, traffic cameras found Mercer’s vehicle heading north.
Toward Wisconsin.
Toward Lake Geneva.
Victor drove with Adrian.
Nicholas followed with Serena.
Gabriel came too.
Victor almost refused.
Then Lily said through the phone.
“If Elena wrote not to blame him, bring him.”
Victor did.
The Catherine Moretti house stood at the end of a private road above the lake.
Lights glowed inside.
Victor stopped outside.
For eleven months, he had dreamed of Elena.
Never like this.
Never with the possibility she might be behind one of those windows.
He entered.
The house was empty.
Fresh coffee sat on a table.
A child’s blanket lay across the couch.
Victor touched it.
Warm.
Someone had left minutes earlier.
Gabriel found a hidden basement door.
They descended.
Medical supplies lined one wall.
Photographs covered another.
Photographs of Victor.
Ethan.
Serena.
Raymond.
Nicholas.
Lily.
Someone had been watching all of them.
Then Victor saw a photograph of Elena.
Taken three days ago.
Alive.
His knees almost failed.
She looked thinner.
Her hair was shorter.
But it was Elena.
His wife.
His dead wife.
Alive.
On the back was an address.
A private rehabilitation center near Madison.
Gabriel recognized it.
“Mercer owns it.”
Victor’s phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
No one spoke.
Then a woman breathed.
Victor closed his eyes.
He knew that breathing.
“Elena.”
Silence.
Then her voice.
“Victor.”
He sat down.
For the first time in years, the feared Victor Blackwood could not speak.
“Elena.”
She began crying.
“I’m sorry.”
He closed his eyes.
“Where are you?”
“With Ethan.”
Victor stood.
“Is he safe?”
“Yes.”
“Did Mercer take him?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
“Is Mercer with you?”
“No.”
Victor heard fear.
“Elena.”
“What?”
“Where are you?”
She whispered an address.
Victor wrote it down.
Then Elena said.
“Victor, don’t bring Gabriel.”
Gabriel’s face changed.
Victor looked at him.
“Why?”
Elena’s breathing shook.
“Because Gabriel didn’t fail.”
Victor stared.
“He betrayed me.”
Gabriel stepped backward.
“No.”
Elena continued.
“He gave Dr. Mercer my location eleven months ago.”
Gabriel shook his head.
“She’s wrong.”
Victor’s eyes hardened.
Elena whispered one final sentence.
“And he knows exactly why Mercer kept me alive.”
The call ended.
Victor looked at the man he had trusted for seventeen years.
Gabriel’s hand moved slowly toward his jacket.
Adrian raised his weapon.
Nicholas did the same.
Victor stared.
“Don’t.”
Gabriel stopped.
May you like
Then he smiled sadly.
“I hoped she would never remember.”
